Monday, November 14, 2016

So, today, I reached a milestone for the second time in my life. This is the second calendar year in which I have run at least 2000 miles.

The first time I did this was in 2014. At the start of 2014, I set out specifically to pass 2000 miles. That year it took me until November 23. I reached 2000 miles when I finished mile 20 of the Philadelphia marathon that year. And I ran another 222.2 miles so that I ended the year at 2222.2 miles.

This year, I did not begin the year with a goal of 2000 miles. I began the year with a goal of running an ultra-marathon. Along the way I reached 1000 miles faster than I had before and by Memorial Day, I had run a marathon as part of my training and an ultra marathon.

At that point, I didn't think I was going to race anything longer than a 5K for the rest of the year. But over the summer, I kept up the miles and when it was clear that I could jump into the Baltimore Running Festival marathon, I decided to run that. So, I accumulated miles and just kept on going and I have continued to accumulate miles since the Baltimore Running Festival.

For quite some time, my projected miles for the end of the year have been more than 2222.2 And I had begun to focus on my goal of 10,000 logged miles by Easter weekend 2017. So, yesterday when I recorded my mileage and I realized that I was at 1994, I was quite surprised.

Today, my workout was a "nervous energy" workout. I didn't really need a track workout, but I ran 6x400 to get out a lot of nervous energy that I had for reasons related to work.

When I was done running to Gilman, doing my track workout, running home, and taking the dog around the block, I had run 6.7 miles and ended up at 2000.7 miles at the end of today. It was pretty much like any other day, but it sets the stage for a great end of year mileage. I don't have a particular goal other than to keep up approximately 6 miles per day on average which should put me near 2300 miles. I am not going to specifically shoot for 2300 miles, but I will take whatever comes.

I have enjoyed running occasionally with Joselyn, once with Jackie, often with Kristen, and frequently with Lauren. I've run a few times with Dee and once or twice with Ivona. I've picked up a new regular running partner (Nicole) who helps me run a bit faster than my usual with Lauren but slower than Kristen. That is a nice in between pace and is healthy. The biggest challenge is that running with someone who works retail can be challenging. I ran my first full marathon staying with one runner the whole time. I got back to running with Back on My Feet. I did the Sneaks Come Out at Night race for the first time.

I look forward to many more miles this year and going into the future. Some with each of the partners mentioned above, some alone, some with the dog, and many just to clear my mind. I may run more 2000 mile years. I will never start the year with that as an explicit goal, but if I maintain my average of 6 miles per day for the foreseeable future, I will hit it again and again and continue to accumulate miles and achieve goals for years to come.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Today, I close out my 2016 fall marathon training season with one last entry about the run. After I wrote out my long race report yesterday (from which I have heard comments about feeling like people were there, surprise that my running partner tossed her watch, and thanks for my last two paragraphs on running and friendship), I attended mass yesterday and Father Marty gave a homily focusing on the first two words: persistence and patience.

The readings yesterday at mass were about persistent prayer. Father Marty commented on this in his homily and gave several interpretations. First, in addition to the importance of persistence, patience is also important. The two are not identical. The priest reminded us of how our cell phones have made us expect immediate responses and how that flows over into other aspects of our lives. If we fail to be patient we then forget that it is important to wait and to stick with things (persistence). He then linked persistent prayer to living life as prayer. My interpretation of that is that it is not just about saying prayers at church and repeating them over and over again in an unending chant. It is about living out one's beliefs all day every day and not just the hour a week at mass while saying prayers.

Patience and persistence and living out one's beliefs are all important for marathon running. Training takes a while (needing patience). Training takes sticking with it over many long runs and many other training miles of various sorts (persistence). The actual marathon run requires patience (one cannot go too fast too soon) and persistence (one has to keep going).

When running with another (as mentioned yesterday) it is an example of living out my beliefs in life--trusting another, being generous with time with another, having faith that everything will work out, and not wasting a step. (All things related to the Bible verse from my bib number).

Every concept so far works for me in my Catholic beliefs as I listen to a priest but also can work for just about anyone regardless of their belief system as long as they believe in the good intentions of their fellow human beings--and I am willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt until the person has proven otherwise.

Where does people come in? There were plenty of people in both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel yesterday. There were plenty of people at the marathon. But the people I want to focus on in this particular entry are people I train with. One of the things that training with people over the past six years (since marathon #1) and training more and more with people over the past year has done for me is to make me more ready to run with just about anyone. It no longer takes months or years to understand, "I can run with this person just being present. We don't need to talk the whole time." It no longer takes me months or years to figure out how to challenge a fellow runner enough but not too much. It no longer takes me months or years to figure out how to encourage someone. And this has come from running with people again and again. Just as with anything else in life--running with people requires practice. The more one practices the better one gets. That goes for many aspects of running. Many aspects of life. And the more I learn to relate to others, the better I can share the part of me that is "sure and steady runner" with those who want to experience that--whether sure and steady is based on pace or emotion or anything else.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Baltimore Running Festival 2016 is now in the history
books.The morning began in the low 40’s
with my getting up around 3, taking care of making a bread dough, walking the dog,
and taking a quick shower.I drove to my
office, parked the car in my normal space below the Legg Mason building, and
proceeded to walk over to the start/finish area of the marathon.I found the Back on My Feet tent and met up
with the person with whom I was planning to run the marathon.

That was around 6:40. We had a little under an hour before
the walk to the starting line.Back on
My Feet had its circle up featuring four resident members who were running
different distances talking about how they prepared—one step or one mile at a
time among other expressions.We were by
the M&T Bank Stadium where the Ravens play.A portion of the stadium was open to provide extra access to bathroom
facilities and I know that each of us made use of that before the start of the
race.

I had pinned four nutrition packs to the outside of the
shorts I was wearing.I had consumed a
bunch of calories the day before to give my body some extra reserve and then I
consumed one of the nutrition packs a bit before the race.The type I like to use is honey-based and I
can consume it without needing water most times.While waiting for the start I also took a
little water and some of a bottle of Gatorade I had brought with me.

I left my bag between some cubbies at the tent, had on
only a thin throw-away long sleeve shirt on top of my Back on My Feet tank top,
and we walked over to the start. With
less than 3,000 runners in the race, despite getting to the start line less
than 15 minutes before the race, we were able to weave our way up to the 3:35
pacers.A person I have referred to in
the past as my running guardian angel was one of the three pacers.

After hearing from the mayor of the city (in the most
animated state I’d ever seen or heard her) and the race chair, and a local Olympian
from the last summer, someone sang a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled
Banner and soon the race began. My GPS watch online data says it was 41
degrees.I think it was a little warmer
but it was a great temperature at the start.

Here are the splits:

Splits

Time

Cumulative Time

1

0:08:16.5

0:08:16.5

2

0:08:04.3

0:16:20.8

3

0:08:07.4

0:24:28.2

4

0:07:54.3

0:32:22.5

5

0:07:53.0

0:40:15.5

6

0:07:54.9

0:48:10.4

7

0:07:59.8

0:56:10.2

8

0:07:57.8

1:04:08.0

9

0:07:51.7

1:11:59.7

10

0:07:59.7

1:19:59.4

11

0:07:57.1

1:27:56.5

12

0:07:52.4

1:35:48.9

13

0:08:01.5

1:43:50.4

14

0:07:55.5

1:51:45.9

15

0:07:59.9

1:59:45.8

16

0:08:01.5

2:07:47.3

17

0:08:01.5

2:15:48.8

18

0:07:48.6

2:23:37.4

19

0:07:53.3

2:31:30.7

20

0:07:55.9

2:39:26.6

21

0:08:01.3

2:47:27.9

22

0:07:51.2

2:55:19.1

23

0:07:56.0

3:03:15.1

24

0:07:42.0

3:10:57.1

25

0:07:57.0

3:18:54.1

26

0:07:31.9

3:26:26.0

27

0:02:00.5

3:28:26.5

That first mile was slow
largely because of just trying to get started.While there were less than 3,000 runners in the race it was still a
crowded start.And that first mile is up
toward Druid Hill park.The second and
third miles also were over 8 minutes.Perfect pace for the 3:35 pace group.But not what my partner for the day wanted to run—closer to a 3:30. A
3:35 would make her “Boston qualified.”But given that people had to be more than a minute (and perhaps more
than two minutes) under the actual qualifying time to get into Boston 2017, she
wanted to be comfortably under 3:35.

The run through the zoo included
keepers out with several animals.A nice
touch but none of the runners at that pace were spending a lot of time looking
at the animals.It’s mostly downhill through
the zoo.Then we were into Druid Hill
park and headed toward the Johns Hopkins campus.It was our first uphill other than the start
and it set the standard for the day—increasing effort on the uphill.So much easier to do when I am running with
someone.Hard to do on my own.And even though I’ve only known Elysabeth
over the past summer, we could run together at pace without having to say
much.I did encourage her to slow down
just a bit as we ran toward JHU with the reminder—you’ll need this energy
later.

So, the race went on—winding
through Charles Village to get to St Paul and the long run down St Paul
street.We chatted sometimes and I
updated her about the pace as we passed each mile.Back at mile 2, I had missed the first water
stop—unusual for me.But that was the
only one I missed during the race.I saw
my coworker Emmanuel on Light Street south of Pratt.

As we were running along
Key Highway toward the Under Armour headquarters, I saw my friend Joselyn.She crushed the race yesterday—running a 3:14.
Amazing.I’ve never run a full marathon
with her before, but that would have been incredible if I’d been able to keep
up.The key was, I had not trained up to
that this time.

Every mile had a sign
marking it.Every five miles and at the
half there was a clock too.The clocks
were apparently sponsored by Pandora.That
was a surprise to me, although with a local office, it is not a surprise that
they should be an important sponsor.We
passed the half before it started.If we’d
been on pace for a 3:35 at least the front pack in the half would have begun
already.So, I knew we were ahead of
schedule.I forget what the exact time
for the half was when we passed it and the marathon provides a 12.5-mile time
rather than a 13.1-mile time (odd) but by my calculation from the splits we
would have been at 1:44:38.It couldn’t
have gotten much more perfect than that.It had warmed up quite a bit.And
even with just a tank top, I was drenched by mile 12. The part of the race on Light
Street and Key Highway reminds me of the MCVET races on Memorial Day weekend
when it is usually hot.We chatted about
that.

As we ran down President Street
and into Harbor East, we eventually got to a water stop near mile 15.It was the first one at which I remember
food.I had consumed one nutrition pack
at that point, and I recalled consuming bananas during the Comrades run in
South Africa.So I took one. I could immediately feel that it was slightly
under-ripe.So, I knew it would have
been (a) a challenge to peel, and (b) not soft to eat.That told me I didn’t want to consume it
right away.So, I carried it.At some point, I think it was in the same
area, my running partner for the day threw away her watch.It was old and pretty close to dead and it
was distracting her, so she got rid of it.

The race went onto a
street that I run on often with my most frequent training partner and over to
Canton.This was where the work for this
marathon truly begins.Up Linwood toward
Patterson Park.And we did just fine
running up that hill.At the southeast
corner of Patterson Park is where we joined with the half marathon
runners.It gets a lot more crowded at
that point.Up Madison.A reprieve running down Washington. Then
up.Across Sinclair—that was new, a
little out and back.Then up through Lake
Clifton park.Then up Harford.Then up Hillen briefly.Then down to Lake Montebello and around.Running around the Lake there was less wind
than in the past years I’ve run the race and that was good.I still had the banana.I was beginning to think about how to get rid
of it.I didn’t feel I needed more
calories.Two nutrition packs is what I’ve
used in many marathons (although my coach usually recommends more like
four).My stomach was feeling fine.A little cramp at one point but not enough to
stop me.I suppose I could have just
tossed it, but I didn’t want to waste it.

Coming off the lake we hit
the 33rd Street “hill”.It is
infamous within the Baltimore running community.A hill that is actually pretty small but that
feels like a lot after 20+ miles.Once
we hit the top of that hill, we knew we were near the Back on My Feet water
stop.That was fun to pass as we got a
big shout out.A Back on My Feet member
had run with us for a brief bit back around Lake Montebello as he was on the
way to the water stop on the north side of the lake.

We reached 33rd
and Guilford and turned south toward 29th street.There was loud music at the top of
Guilford.Then, I passed my son as his girlfriend
who gave a nice shout out.Then, the Eye
of the Tiger guy and we turned onto 29th. At 29th and Howard some of
Elysabeth friends cheered her own and we began the final few miles.

The run down Howard Street
was comfortable.We were counting down
miles.At one point Elysabeth had made a
comment about concern about keeping going.I told her to let me know if she felt bad but that she had worked too
hard and come too far to do anything other than finish as strong as
possible.

Going down Howard we went over
the bridge and by the underpass.Then we
hit MLK and the turn onto Eutaw.There
was just a mile and a half or so to go.And we were on target for a time that would not only be under 3:35 but
that would be under 3:30. We just had to hang on.

And that was just what we
did.We held on and ran strong all the
way through.Each of us occasionally
running ahead and then the two of us coming together.And as we approached the finish line with the
clock overhead, I pointed out just how fast we had gone.We crossed the line and the feeling of
accomplishment was amazing.If she wants
to go to Boston, she can and will get in with ease.I was incredibly proud of her.And it was an amazing feeling of giving.

We reflected on how we had
probably run the fastest miles uphill.

What was so different
about this race?First, I had never run
a full race with one person ever before.Baltimore 2010—I didn’t know anyone at my pace.Baltimore 2011—I knew a few people, but didn’t
stay with.NCR 2011—knew one or two and
didn’t stay with.Lower Potomac 2012—didn’t
know anyone else there.Boston 2013—knew
a couple but did not run with.Philadelphia 2014—ran the last four miles with my “running guardian
angel.”Freedoms Run 2015—ran 19 miles
with Lauren but needed to finish faster than she was able.Gettysburg 2016—traveled with a guy but ran
alone, taking the opportunity to chat with a few people as we went along.So, this was the first time, I spent nearly
three and one-half hours running with one person.

What else?I still had that banana at the end of the
race.I was peeling and eating it before
we got to the food at the finish line. I
finally was hungry enough and had the time to focus on peeling the banana.As expected it took a little extra effort to
peel and it was definitely a solid banana that would not have been easy to
consumer while running at virtually any pace.

Elysabeth asked if I had
any post-race rituals.I talked about
walking—which I did a good bit of.I should
have also said writing—here it is.

Finally, I want to reflect
on the bib number.I had been trying to
find spiritual meaning in my running ever since my first marathon.So, the 1026 takes me to John’s gospel—chapter
6, verse 10 plus 2 more.Here is the Catholic
version:

Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there
was a great deal of grass in that
place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then
Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were
reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When
they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left
over, so that nothing will be wasted.”

This is just after one of
the apostles had identified a boy with five loaves and two fish.Interesting that I was making bread before
the marathon (which my 11-year-old completed so that he could take it to the
last garden club meeting for the fall).This is a story with no waste—related to my carrying the banana 11
miles.And this is a story of generosity
and trust.The boy’s generosity.Maybe others generosity—perhaps the miracle
was just people giving and sharing rather than a true multiplying.There was also trust among the people that if
they did what they were told things would work out.And a faith in others.That was all true yesterday.

Yesterday’s marathon was
not the fastest total or in Baltimore. Of course, qualifying for Boston while having
no one to run with was a big deal.Boston itself was a big deal as proof of my ability.But yesterday’s was one of the more
meaningful.Running can be a very lonely
sport sometimes.But yesterday was a day
of teamwork to achieve something amazing for someone else.And that provides a feeling like few others.

And since I often reflect on second chances in this blog, this was my second chance to help someone else achieve a marathon goal. And this time, we executed perfectly.

Please donate

As you follow my preparation for the Comrades Marathon 2016, please consider making a donation to Sharp Dressed Man to provide more opportunities for men in Baltimore. When you do, please post on my Facebook page or send me an email (baltrunner1313@aol.com) and I will make sure that you get a copy of my reflections on the training, the spirit of giving, and the race (The Spirit of a Runner on the Way to Comrades) by August 1, 2016.